Safety in Inglewood (Hawthorne, West Hollywood, Brea: rent, crime, hotel)

[HarryLLL62]

[SIZE=3]Hello everyone. I need to ask a question and it is really not intended to offend anyone. I am a retired African American. I have lived in Panama for the last six years. I have also worked and lived in Colombia, and spent time in Peru and Costa Rica. I mention the above only to say that I speak Spanish and I am very comfortable with the Latina culture.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]However, in August I am going to transit LAX en route to Thailand. To break up the flight, and to shop (until I drop) in a couple LA shopping malls. I plan to book a motel in Inglewood close to LAX on West Manchester or Centinela Avenue.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]I will arrive in the afternoon and spend one full night in LA. During that afternoon I will probably rent a car and explore the area. The next day, I will probably spend most of it shopping malls. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]I will check out at about 8pm on the second night and head to LAX for my flight. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]My question is are there Inglewood areas that I should avoid at all cost? If I limit my travel to shopping malls or other large areas during the day, should I be concern about crime against me? [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Thanks in advance[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Harry[/SIZE]

[StaggerLee22]

What?

[sprint100]

Just stay on major streets and don't start driving on the residential streets. Not that Inglewood is a horribly bad place, but the spots to avoid are so spread out/spotty it would be hard to list them all. Public areas like malls will be OK, since you mention shopping I must say to avoid swap meets around there no matter how good they sound.

[friking94]

Try to get your hotel north of Century Blvd. , and west of La Brea Ave. Those areas are in the better part of Inglewood.

[apollyoncruiser]

Originally Posted by friking94

Try to get your hotel north of Century Blvd. , and west of La Brea Ave. Those areas are in the better part of Inglewood.

Yeah Friking, I was thinking the exact same thing. He'd do much better to stay at a hotel on Century Blvd just east of LAX. That way you'll have a better landmark to mention as to where you need to get back to while you're exploring LA.

And, as someone said earlier, stay to main streets and you be fine. There are plenty of shopping spots and malls down on that end of town. Manhattan Village Shopping Plaza, South Bay Galleria, Del Amo Fashion Center; all on major streets. (Sepulveda Blvd and Hawthorne Blvd.) Going east on Century Blvd you'll find a couple of plazas at the cornor of Century and Crenshaw Blvds. There's not much other than residentials east of Crenshaw so I shouldn't bother.

Going north towards West Hollywood on La Cienega Blvd and Beverly Blvd is The Beverly Center and less than a mile east on Beverly Blvd at Fairfax Ave is CBS Studios. Turning right on Fairfax just behind CBS is Farmers Market and The Grove. There's stuff in the valley but with your limited time I don't know if it'll be worth the drive.

Take a look at Google maps and position everywhere you want to go from your hotel of choice and do a get directions search. That way you'll get a good idea of how far a place of interest is. Be prepared to drive and realize that if it says it'll take 10 minutes to get from point A to B, in reality it'll be more like 25 or 30 minutes.